Mele Kalikimaka

Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters' Hawaiian Christmas song

I’m completely behind on Christmas tuneage! There’s posts that have been patiently waiting in the draft folder for this time of year. This is one of them. If you’ve subscribed in 2024, you missed a lot of great songs from last year. Check them out here.

This song was written by Robert Alexander Anderson in 1949. Anderson was born in Honolulu and first started songwriting without any formal training while he attended Cornell University.¹ His songs were part of what became known as Hapa Haole, songs that used English lyrics and American musical styles but Hawaiian themes and instruments.

Here’s Anderson talking about the inspiration for the song.

Crosby was a golf partner of Anderson’s whenever he was in Hawai’i. Anderson played it for him and he liked it so much that he recorded it as a surprise for Anderson in 1950 with his frequent collaborators and Decca labelmates The Andrew Sisters. He then put it on the re-release of his popular Merry Christmas album in 1955 and it’s been around ever since.

This video was produced by Fantoons Animation Studios (the same studio that’s done Rush’s animated videos) and released in 2020. It’s an wild trip through an Esther Williams-like fantasia with Bing as…a singing totem pole?

Enjoy your song of the day!

1. After his time at Cornell, he flew combat missions in France during WWI. It’s said that his daring escape after being shot down by the Germans and taken as a prisoner of war was the initial impetus for the 1930 film The Dawn Patrol, which won an Oscar for Best Story.